1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information managing apparatus for managing various types of information placed in different categories in accordance with their categories and, more particularly, to an information managing apparatus which can store and display various types of information input by operating keys and the like in units of types of information.
2. Description of the Related Art
Various information managing apparatuses are known, among which are electronic notebook and portable computers. An electronic notebook is used widely as a personal apparatus for managing various information, for example. The electronic notebook has address note (telephone directory) function for registering and retrieving address information, schedule function for registering and retrieving schedule information, calendar function for registering and retrieving calendar information, and memo function for registering and retrieving memo information, and also function as a calculator. The electronic notebook has a keyboard comprising many keys, some of which are assigned to the address (telephone number) registering and retrieving function, schedule registering and retrieving function, the calendar registering and retrieving function, memo registering and retrieving function, the calculator function, and the like. To register or retrieve an information item of any type into and from the memory, a user operates the key assigned to the corresponding function, thereby selecting that function, and then operates some other keys.
Some types of electronic notebook and portable computers can be connected by a communication cable to an office computer or a home-use computer such as a personal computer, so that they may access the information stored in a large-capacity memory incorporated in the office computer or home-use computer. Other types can be connected to a paging receiver, so that information radio-transmitted from an information source may be input to them through the paging receiver. U.S. Pat. No. 5,043,721, for example, discloses a portable computer with a plug-in type accessory port and a portable computer with a communication interface port such as an RS232 port. The conventional information managing apparatuses described above can store and display addresses, schedules, memos, and the like.
However, in the conventional information managing apparatuses, any type of data cannot be registered or displayed unless the corresponding function is being selected. More specifically, addresses can be neither registered nor retrieved unless the address registering and retrieving function is selected. Schedule data can be neither registered nor retrieved unless the schedule registering and retrieving function is selected. Memo information can be neither registered nor retrieved unless the memo registering and retrieving function is selected. Therefore, to retrieve and check an information item related to another which is being retrieved, the user needs to change the function. This is rather cumbersome for the user to do.
Of course, such a related data or information item can be stored in not only the proper storage area of the memory, but also the same storage area as the data item being retrieved from the memory. Then, both data items may be simultaneously retrieved and displayed. In this case, however, the same data or information item is stored in a plurality of storage areas, inevitably reducing the memory-use efficiency.
A data or information item such as a person's name needs to be stored along with not only address information, but also schedule information and memos information. Hence, the data item must be stored in two or more storage areas of the memory. Here lies a problem. Since any data item cannot be registered unless the corresponding function is selected, the user must repeat almost the same input operation as many times as the independent storage areas into which the data item is stored. This is also troublesome work for the user.